


Paint Me in Trust

by bartsy



Series: Home is Where the Heartache [2]
Category: Holby City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 09:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18602089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartsy/pseuds/bartsy
Summary: She finally tears her eyes away from Sacha and turns her head to look Fletch in the eyes. “I’m the best cardiothoracic surgeon in this place and that’s what Sacha needed today. Not a friend.”She looks back over at Sacha, who’s now lightly snoring. Fletch can see the corners of Jac’s mouth turn up.“I was there for him in surgery, I’m here for him now.”-----------Set after the crossover, Fletch wonders about Jac's relationship with Sacha.





	Paint Me in Trust

After leaving Essie, Fletch’s next mission is to find Jac. In between the chaos of the entire day, he heard that Sacha had fallen ill and Jac had rushed him into surgery. That’s all he knows.

The whole day had been a blur of watching his friends fall apart and at the time, he could only handle one crisis at a time. Essie had come first. He made a promise to Raf that he would look after her. Nothing but his kids would come before breaking that promise.

But now that he knows that she’s being taken care of, he can finally worry about Jac. His stomach had dropped when he learned the news about Sacha, hoping and wishing that his friend would make it through surgery.

Of course, with Jac (and Connie, Fletch had heard that, too) as his surgeon, he wasn’t too worried that Sacha wouldn’t make it off the table. He did worry, however, of how Jac would’ve fared if Sacha hadn’t survived, but he’s glad that he doesn’t have to think about that now.

He got word that Sacha’s out of the woods and his whole body sighed with relief.

He makes way to Darwin, where he knows Jac is bound to be, if she hasn’t already left for the day. She wasn’t supposed to be in today anyway (and in hindsight, thank God she was), so he doesn’t know if he’s going to see her again or not.

There’s little chance that she would leave Sacha so soon after his surgery, but Fletch knows how an accident like that can make you cling to the family you have, so he wonders briefly if maybe she’s gone home to see Emma.

Jac’s office is dark when he gets there, so he assumes that she’s already left. Before he can really think about it, he feels his pockets for his cell phone, preparing to give her a ring and see how she’s doing.

It’s purely on instinct. It’s like there’s a compulsion in him to want to always know what she’s doing. How she’s doing. What she’s thinking. He can’t help it and at this point, he doesn’t want to.

As he walks back down the hallway, he types out a message ( _You okay?_ , nothing too deep so she can respond to it with an apathetic Of course or, at the very least, she can not respond to it, but he has his read receipts on, so he’ll know that she knows that he’s thinking about her) before looking up from his phone to rethink his message. He stops when he notices through the window that he’s standing next to Sacha’s room.

He looks through to check on his friend, when he sees a figure leaning over Sacha’s bed. Fletch walks to the front of the room and realizes that both Sacha and the person with him are asleep.

It doesn’t take long for Fletch to realize that the sleeping figure is Jac. Her neck is crooked so that her head is resting on its side as she faces away from Sacha, her red hair falling across her face.

He walks into the room and notices that Jac’s arm is stretched out a bit. She’s holding Sacha’s in her own. This is the most peaceful he's seen her in weeks, if not months.

For a moment, he watches her. He knows about her relationship with Sacha, knows how important he is to her, but he can’t help but wish that he knew more. All he wants to do is learn about Jac— about her life, her past, her friends and family— he just wants to dig and dig until he knows her inside and out.

Fletch had thought that he was doing a pretty good job of knocking down Jac's tough exterior, but then something happens and he inevitably learns that there's more to her than she'd been letting on.

Fletch doesn't want to wake her, but the knot in her neck must be getting bigger by the second and being leant over a hospital bed can't be doing any wonders for her already aching back.

He gently touches her shoulder, careful not to scare her. Still, she jolts up.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” He blunders, wishing he’d just let her be.

Jac wipes at her tired eyes, then brushes her hair behind her ears. For a second, she looks at Fletch, but then turns her head to Sacha.

“No, it’s fine.” She’s still holding Sacha’s hand. “Beka went back to her room and I didn’t want him to be alone.”

Fletch isn’t sure of how to respond. He’s only ever seen Jac like this— gentle, compassionate, worried— a handful of times. Usually for Emma, rarely a patient, more recently for him.

But this is different, somehow.

He wonders briefly if Jac would ever lay by his bedside all night long, just to make sure he wasn’t alone.

It’s not fair for him to compare their relationships, but he’s always wondered why Jac can open up to Sacha, but not him. What makes Sacha so special?

It’s a cruel thought, he knows, with Sacha lying in the hospital. And especially after everything he’s been through lately, Fletch is kicking himself for it.

So, he puts the horrible thought aside and focuses on Jac.

Fletch is smart enough not to insist that Jac go home. Instead, he pulls a chair from the other side of the room to sit next to her.

“You okay?”

She leans back in her chair, her eyes still fixated on Sacha. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Her answer is just as he expected. She’s been through hell and back today, and of course she’s acting like none of it is affecting her. He knows what it’s like to lose a best friend and he can’t imagine that Jac is actually feeling as calm as she wants him to believe she is.

“C’mon Jac, it’s just you and me, you don’t have to lie.”

“It doesn’t matter how I am.” She says, her voice heavy and tired.

He just wants to shake her. _Of course it matters_ , he thinks, _everything you do matters._

“Sacha and Beka could’ve died today.” She says it like she knows what Fletch is thinking. “How’s Essie, by the way?”

“Better, but, you know…” He trails off.

It’s still hard, talking about Raf. More than a year gone and he still feels like he’s falling off a cliff when he says his name.

She seems to know what he means. “She’ll be okay.” It’s what he wants to hear. There’s no confidence in her words, though.

Jac has lost a lot of people. Fletch doesn’t question her.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You almost lost Sacha today, that must’ve been hard.” He watches as her shoulders square off and her jaw tightens. “Doing surgery on him and all that.”

“It’s my job.”

It’s a classic Jac move. She’s burying her feelings in an effort to not feel anything. She thinks have emotions makes her weak, that _caring_ about people makes her weak.

“No.” He leans forward, shaking his head. “Stop— stop it. No, _this_ is _not_ your job. How can you just— I mean it’s Sacha!”

“Would you keep your voice down?”

Sacha is still sleeping.

“Sorry.” He tries leaning back in his chair, hoping a more relaxed position will ease the tension in his mind. “But, I know what he means to you. How can you act like this is just another day at the office? He’s your friend.”

Jac twists the hand that’s holding onto Sacha, her hand underneath his now. She places her free hand on top. “Because I have to.”

She finally tears her eyes away from Sacha and turns her head to look Fletch in the eyes. “I’m the best cardiothoracic surgeon in this place and _that’s_ what Sacha needed today. Not a friend.”

She looks back over at Sacha, who’s now lightly snoring. Fletch can see the corners of Jac’s mouth turn up.

“I was there for him in surgery, I’m here for him now.”

They sit in silence. If it had been Essie or Raf or Lofty or any of the other people he holds close, he doesn’t think that he could do it. He couldn’t even be able to be in the room during an operation.

“You don’t get it.” Jac says. “It wasn’t easy. It might’ve been the most difficult thing I’ve done this year alone, but it needed to be done. The only person I trust as much as myself to save Sacha’s life was Connie and I thank God that she was there.”

“You don’t believe in God.” He says it as a joke to ease the tension between them, but Jac shakes her head, the movement so small he can barely see it.

“No, religion’s for Sacha. I believe in medicine and science and today, the science told me that I couldn’t save him by myself.”

Fletch isn’t sure what to say to that. This isn’t typical of Jac. If there’s one thing that Fletch knows about her, it’s that she’ll do anything and everything alone. She hates asking for help. She literally almost died (again) because she’d rather suffer alone than share her pain, but for Sacha she managed it.

He doesn’t think She would do anything like that for him. Would she be able to shut her feelings off and operate if the situation called for it? Would he even want her to?

But it begs a larger question for Fletch.

Jac and Sacha are nothing alike. Jac is nothing but sharp angles, whereas Sacha is the softest person he’s ever met. It’s not like he thinks one person is better than the other, but they’re a bit like chocolate and peanut butter. They’re two completely different entities, but when they come together, it’s incredible.

Jac and Sacha are great on their own, but by the few times he’s seen them interact, he knows they’re better for it. Jac’s edges are softened, Sacha’s wit sharper. They shouldn’t, but they work together well.

“You’re right, I don’t get it.” Jac sighs. “You and Sacha...I’m sorry, I just, I don’t get it. You know I love Sacha as much as the next person, but you and him, it’s…”

“Fletch—”

“You’re both so different. Not, not bad different,” he stutters, not wanting to give her the wrong idea. “But you have to admit, it’s a bit—”

“I know.”

Fletch treads carefully. “How did you two even become friends? I can’t imagine that was easy.”

Jac laughs. It’s soft, almost silent, but he sees the upturned corners of her mouth and he thinks that she couldn’t look more beautiful.

She doesn’t wear it often, but happiness looks good on her.

“Truth be told, being Sacha’s friend has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

Fletch nods like he understands, but the sentiment shocks him. Being Jac’s friend has been a long time coming, so hearing that Jac took to Sacha like a fish takes to water is a little infuriating.

“He was just always there for me. In a way that no one else was.” She takes a deep breath. “He’d only been at Holby a little while before my mother showed up. He was the first person I told.”

“I really didn’t like him when he arrived, you know? He was...well, he was Sacha. Loveable, cuddly Sacha, always had a smile and something nice to say. It infuriated me.”

That’s more like what Fletch imagined. “But he was the only person who didn’t hate me. After everything went to shit with Joseph and Charles and Faye, I, well, I had a bad reputation. Clearly things have changed.”

Her smile is wry and he laughs along with her. “Everyone treated me like I was poison, but Sacha? Never. Not even when I was behaving abysmally. Even when he was cross with me, it never felt like he thought I was a bad person.”

She leans forward in her chair and rubs the fabric of Sacha’s blanket between her fingers. “I know I act like I think I’m better than everyone else, but you know that’s not true, right? What I said to you when we….you know I didn’t mean that.”

_You’re not good enough for me._

The sentence rings in his ears. It makes his skin itch and he remembers why having a relationship with Jac is nearly impossible.

She always knows what to say to get under your skin. Whether or not she believes it herself, she knows what makes someone tick and knows how to get them to back off her when they’re getting too close.

He nods silently because, yeah, he does know that she didn’t mean it, but hearing her say it out loud is better than the quiet assumption he’d been forced to make.

“Sacha could see that right away. I don’t know how he did, but I guess that’s just how he is.”

He’s noticed that about Sacha, too.

He also notices how relaxed Jac is right now. She’s opening her memories up to him, which would normally cause her to tense up, but it must be Sacha’s presence.

Her lightest, calmest moments are always with Sacha. When she talks about her memories with him, she lights up like a kid talking fondly about their father.

Fletch has no idea what happened to Jac’s father and if he’s anything like her mother, he doesn’t want to. But knowing that Jac has Sacha in her life has eased his tension.

He suddenly realizes that he has no need to be worried about how Jac is doing all of the time. She has Sacha, the _best_ person, looking out for her.

“I’ve been there for him too, you know. Like with his kids or Chrissie or— I’d never let anything bad happen to him.” Her words are assertive. She’s sure of herself. Fletch is sure of her, too. Judging by her reaction to his suicide attempt and the efforts she went through today to save him, he knows that she’ll never let any harm come to him. “He’s my family.”

He thinks that he finally gets them.

Sacha doesn’t make Jac a better person, he makes her _want_ to be a better person. She thrives on his love for her. He’s no therapist, but he could guess that Sacha fulfills Jac desire for the loving, soft, carefree family she always wished that she had.

She yawns, clearly feeling the effects of the long day.

“Go home, he’ll be fine for the night.”

Shaking her head, she says “I can’t leave him.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Won’t.” She’s stubborn, but he gets it. If had the chance to lay by Raf’s bedside to make sure he made it through the crisis alive, he’d gladly take it.

Anything is better than fear and grief.

“Will you at least find a couch to lay on if your back starts hurting? Sacha wouldn’t want you to be in pain.”

She smiles. “Yeah.” He’s not sure that he believes her, but he stands up from his chair anyway. He has to go home and see his kids. After a day like today, he needs to know that they’re okay.

“Goodnight.” She nods in acknowledgement and turns her head back to Sacha. She leans forward and takes back Sacha’s hand.

He almost entirely out the door when he faintly hears a voice. It’s Sacha, but he’s been asleep and out of commission for the past few hours, so he’s quiet and hoarse. “I love you, too.”

Fletch can’t see it, but he knows Jac smiles.


End file.
